The Man Behind the ‘I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke’ Ad

Warning: this post contains spoilers from the series finale of "Mad Men."

As AMC's "Mad Men" wrapped up, we watched brilliant adman Don Draper go through a bizarre and depressing stretch. It included confessional drinking with fellow war veterans, auto repairs, the latest of many meaningless hookups, and sitting paralyzed by a payphone -- all while wandering aimlessly, it seemed, across the country.

After all that, did Don stumble upon the inspiration for Coca Cola’s iconic 'Hilltop' ad?

The cable drama, whose last episode aired Sunday night, ended on the Coke spot. Though the writers didn’t make it explicit, there was at least a suggestion that Don, whose days as a creative advertising genius seemed far behind him, got the idea from a spiritual retreat in California. Twitter lit up with that theory.

Coca-Cola

But who really knows. Maybe Don just takes to lotus position and meditation and sharing his feelings and continues to live at that ashram with those hippies.

What we do know is that in reality the “Hilltop” ad, also known by the song “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke,” was the brainchild of Bill Backer, creative director on the Coca-Cola account for McCann Erickson (which happens to be the ad giant that bought Mr. Draper’s firm on the show.)

Here’s how the 1971 ad came together, according to Coca-Cola’s website : Mr. Backer was flying to London to meet colleagues in order to write some radio commercials that would be recorded by the New Seekers, a British pop group. But fog forced the flight to divert to Ireland. There, in an airport café, Mr. Backer saw passengers exchanging stories and getting along while sharing Cokes.

“[I] began to see a bottle of Coca-Cola as more than a drink that refreshed a hundred million people a day in almost every corner of the globe,” Mr. Backer wrote. “So that was the basic idea: to see Coke not as it was originally designed to be -- a liquid refresher -- but as a tiny bit of commonality between all peoples, a universally liked formula that would help to keep them company for a few minutes."

Mr. Backer already had written Coca-Cola jingles including “Things Go Better With Coke” and the one for the “Real Thing” campaign. He worked on this one alongside music director Billy Davis and songwriter Roger Cook. The finished “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” song was shipped to radio stations on Feb. 12, 1971.

As for the idea of putting a group of 500 young people from around the world on a hill in Italy to sing the tune in unison, that came from art director Harvey Gabor. The filming had a $250,000 budget, more than quadruple what a typical ad cost to make back then, according to Coca Cola.

The show's ending, which has renewed interest in the old commercial, was the equivalent of a native ad for Coca Cola -- and a powerful one at that.

A spokesman for Coca-Cola said the company didn't pay for the ad. The beverage company said it did give the show permission to use the ad.

“We've had limited awareness around the brand's role in the series' final episodes, and what a rich story they decided to tell. Mad Men is one of the most popular TV shows of all time, and Hilltop is an iconic piece of Coca-Cola history," the Coca-Cola said, in a statement.

The finale's last sequence wasn’t the fade-to-black ending of HBO's “Sopranos” – but it was open enough to allow viewers to believe whatever they want to believe about Don Draper’s future.

On one level, creating a legendary ad would be a stunning turn for a character who seemed so utterly lost heading into the last episode -- and even during the episode.

And yet somehow it isn’t such a stretch to imagine his character hearing the story about the fridge dream and thinking, “What do people really want?” And then taking in his morning meditation and thinking, “Ding.”

After the Mad Men finale aired, the Wikipedia entry for the famous Coke ad credited Don Draper – briefly – but it was updated again before long to give credit back to Mr. Backer and the others.